by Mark Tufo
“How much did that AR you just had to have cost?”
“Umm, a lot.”
“One thousand thirty-two a lots.”
“Well, if you want to get specific.”
“I wanted that dress, and I knew you’d give me a hard time about the price.”
“You lied to me.”
“Relax, it wasn’t the first time.”
“What the hell is going on right now?”
“I was protecting you. Weren’t you much happier thinking your daughter was going to study with friends rather than going out on dates?”
“Well sure.”
“And Justin’s car. Remember when that was hit and totaled in the parking lot where he worked?”
“Sure.”
“He’d let his friend Mario borrow the car. He got drunk and totaled it.”
“Why is no one telling me these things? So when Mario came over all busted up he hadn’t been jumped by a motorcycle gang and robbed?”
“No.”
“It’s all lies. My entire life is a lie.”
“You sure are melodramatic.” She leaned in and kissed me. “Oh, and about your youngest….”
I got up quickly. “I don’t want to know. Just let me live in peaceful ignorance. For God’s sake, woman.”
“We’ve had a good life, you and I.” she said as I helped her up.
“Don’t start down that road. This is the shit people start saying at the end of the movie when they’re about to get killed. Their swan song. We’ve had a great life, and it ain’t over yet.”
“Mike! Get down here!” It was BT bellowing.
“He’s almost as scary as you. Come on, I want you close. You’re freaking me out a little bit with all these revelations and shit.”
“What about your brother?”
“I think he needs a little more alone time.”
“What is it with you males and your fragile egos that you can’t allow someone to help you?”
“To need help is to imply weakness. When weakness is perceived, it is believed you are soft. When people think of you as soft, they will run roughshod over you.”
“This is his family, for heaven’s sake. Of all the places he should be able to turn to for help, this is it.”
“Oh, hell no. You don’t get it. Family is the worst because we will ride him mercilessly. Plus we have the added bonus of seeing him the most.”
“If you didn’t have a dick, you’d be useless.”
I stopped. My foot hovered in the air between steps. By the time I got down to BT, tears were streaming out of my eyes and I was holding my gut.
“How in the fuck is this funny to you?” BT looked like he wanted to smack me into comprehension of the gravity of our situation, and that made it even funnier.
“I think he’s finally snapped,” Tracy said, coming up past me. “What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“I think this is about to get messy. Come here.” He looked over to me and then grabbed Tracy, pulling her onto the deck. I followed, still having some outbursts. What wasn’t funny was that the bulkers seemed to be organizing something. They were herding the smaller zombies in front of them as they went ten or so deep rows back.
“What the…?” I had started to ask just as the bulkers began to push forward. They were trying to use the regular zombies as a barrier between them and the fence. Apparently, they didn’t yet realize the properties of electricity. Once they completed the connection, they’d get fried as well. Or maybe they did. They were given enough space so that they could get a running start. The laugh and almost the remembrance of it were wiped from me. I along with everyone else was transfixed by this change in the game plan.
“The bulkers, shoot the damn bulkers!” I yelled.
That was easier said than done. They were far enough back as to almost be obscured. We couldn’t stop them, but not for lack of trying. We gunned through the ranks of zombies lined up against the fence, maybe even halted their progress somewhat. The problem was we were just barely holding them at bay with six dedicated shooters and three reloaders. The rest of the house was severely undermanned in comparison. I honestly don’t even know how to describe what was happening in the yard. It looked like the world’s largest super soaker squirt guns had been filled with zombie guts and were forcibly being blown through the fence. Widespread Panic used to play this song called “Chilly Water” in concert, and when they sang the words, “gimme some of that cool water,” the entire, and I’m talking the entire, audience would send showers of water into the air from squirt guns, water bottles, jugs, basically whatever they had. The water from ten thousand people would shower down all around us. It was magical. That would not be the word I would use when the water was replaced by zombie innards. The ground was beginning to overflow with the blood of our enemy.
Then, suddenly, it stopped. One second we were listening to what it would sound like if a T-Rex were stuck in a bug zapper, and the next a quiet so resounding as to be deafening.
“MJ!” I poked my head back into the house.
“The fence has been grounded!” he shouted back.
I was going to tell him to un-ground it, but there was no chance of that actually happening. We had to start moving to alternate plans. We were very much in danger of being cut off from the shelter, and much like the post office, was that where we wanted to be for the remainder of the apocalypse?
“I’ve got to get Ron,” Tracy told me.
That was all great and fine. I was going with her.
“BT, we have to go get my brother.” He grunted his reply as the battle waged on. With the fence out of commission, it would not be long until the press of zombies pushed it completely over.
Tracy was already on the steps by the time I got ready to join her. “When the fuck did she get so fast?” I asked as I pursued.
Tracy was by the window. Ron had stopped shooting. I couldn’t tell from where I was standing, but I think he was out of ammo. Might have been for some time.
“We have to go now,” Tracy said, gently extending her hand for him to take. I was pretty shocked when he did, no questions asked. No railings about how he’d lost a child, his wife, and now his house. I stepped back from the doorframe and into the hallway, hoping to prevent the mere sight of me sending him into a downward spiral. He didn’t even acknowledge me. That was good in one sense, bad in others. I stepped in tow behind as they walked, anguished to get back into the fight but not enough to leave my wife. They were walking slowly enough this could have been a funeral procession. When Tracy got Ron onto the basement steps, she turned and placed a hand against my chest.
“Relax, Talbot. I can practically hear you trying to escape your skin.”
“How in the hell do you do that?”
“You really don’t need to follow me, you know. Go fight. Win.” She pressed up as I leaned down. We shared a brief but intense kiss.
“Mike!” It was my sister.
“Go. I’ll be right back.”
This was that moment, that fucking portent moment. I knew things were going to change right there and then. Everything had been building to it, and I stupidly chose to ignore it. There are regrets in life. There will always be a time when you look back on a particular situation and wish you had gone for it or looked before you leapt. That kind of thing. But every once in a while, there are monumental regrets, and those you have to live with the rest of your life and die knowing you fucked up.
“Dad!” This from Justin.
I’d like to say I was distracted by all those looking for me. That, at least, helps me to sleep at night. It was right there in front of my face. Tracy had turned. The door shut behind her, and I wept. Well not yet, but soon enough. I ran to the kitchen.
Epilogue 1
Iggy wanted to eat, but not only eat; he wanted to kill. In the wild, there were times he’d had to kill another animal either for his survival or sustenance, but it was different now. He wanted to kill just for the act of extinguishing anothe
r’s life. Not for joy or food or to make sure he stayed alive, but just because anything and everything in his path needed to die. It was as uncomplicated as that. The gorilla chased the humans through the torture labs, wanting to separate limb from body, using his large canine teeth to rend body parts. He didn’t know the word, but “revenge” might have been appropriate. He’d been taken by force from his home and shoved into small cages, most not large enough to even allow him the ability to stand, much less turn around.
They’d injected him with all manner of substances. Some making him so sick he wished he would die. Other times, they’d operated on him, cutting him open while he was awake. The pain had been so severe he did not think there could be anything worse. Then they’d injected him with sample number forty-four, and everything he thought he knew about the world had changed. He felt as if something deep inside of him had grabbed hold of his organs with metallic hooks and was slowly pulling everything within him to the outside. When it was done, he was convinced he knew what it felt like to die. He would return the favor to those who had shown him the way.
Epilogue 2
Conversation with God
* * *
Possibly drug induced, stress induced, hard impact to the head induced, or fuck, what do I know; maybe it’s real induced.
“Hello, Michael.”
“Seen any good movies lately?” I was nervous as all hell. Wow, what a bad turn of an expression, considering my surroundings.
“I don’t think I brought you here to discuss my viewing habits.”
“You can’t fault me. You’re the one that brought it up last time.”
God actually paused for a second as he thought. To me, this was strange for an omnipotent being. Didn’t He just know everything, always? Well, even a Cray computer needs a part of a second to figure a problem out.
“Things are not happening in your realm as I believed they would.”
“You mean the shit show going on right now? Maybe you should have thought of that before you gave us that free will crap you seem so high and mighty on.”
“I know you are in pain, Michael. You have suffered losses you will never fully forget, and for you, at least, time is not on your side.”
Those last few words were charged with a couple of different meanings, and I was hesitant to get clarification. Was my time so short I would blissfully be let go from my pain or was it so long I would carry it for an indeterminate age? Neither response was good. Odds were He wouldn’t answer it, and I didn’t want to know. I went a different way.
“Are they…” I gulped.
“They’re fine. Their pain is over.”
I felt like a petulant child when I said it. Couldn’t help myself. “What about my pain?”
“Stop, drop and roll will not work in Hell.”
“Nice, so you’re basically saying I still have things to do down there before I make my way here. I don’t understand why you can’t just tell me what I need to do. Certainly you know.”
“I do.” He nodded solemnly.
“Yet you can’t tell me?”
He nodded again. “If I were but to give you a glimpse, it would wipe away the covenant of the free will.”
“Covenant? An agreement? Free will is an agreement, like an arrangement?”
“Of a sort.”
“So that’s not done out of the kindness of your heart? Who is this agreement with? Between man and you?”
“You ever read the Old Testament?”
“That one is a little too preachy for me, full of fire and brimstone. Lots of kneeling and proselytizing.”
“I agree, man can be somewhat overzealous in their depictions and descriptions of my actual message, but there is a kernel of truth hidden in there as well. It was never my intention for anybody to ever die in my name, yet countless millions have as they falsely fly my banner. I am not to be blindly worshipped, forced upon others, not even revered, just loved. That was all I have ever wanted. And not blindly loved merely because I exist but a mutual respect and appreciation of each other’s existence. I knew there was going to be a problem when one of the first priests said there were certain ways that I must be loved and all other ways were wrong. It has been a long dark road since. The garden was a wonderful time. It was not quite the fairy tale it has been shown to be. Men and women still died. Life was a constant struggle. Yet it was beautiful in its innocence. I suppose in the end it was all my fault.”
I didn’t say anything. God was about to go all revelations and shit. I was curious.
“I had an affinity for man.”
“Umm, because we were made in your image.”
God actually laughed. “Not so much. I do not even believe your mind capable of understanding my true form.”
“Do you look like a spider-centaur?” It was the first truly disturbing imagery I could come up with.
“Ah, I see the walls between your realities have come dangerously close. Let’s hope they never collide. Let’s just say we do not share very many traits. Early man was a very curious creature, always looking and wondering. It was the first time I saw one looking to the heavens that I wanted more for them. I gave a small gift, one so insignificant I thought it would go unnoticed.”
“Gold?”
God sighed. “Not material things. You know nothing, Michael Talbot.”
“You did not just say that.”
God shrugged and continued on as if He had not just dropped a reference from a book I’d read. It was things like that which made me question whether this was all made up in my head or not. Or perhaps, if I wanted to go a layer deeper, He used the information I housed in my head to better be able to communicate with me. If He was as vastly different from us as He said He was, that might be the only way we could converse.
“Happiness, Michael. I gave that first man a small sliver of happiness for what he gazed upon. Had I known how things would turn out, I would have never done so. If we’re being honest it was a female gazing upon a fruit. So there is some truth to the original Adam and Eve story, though she was not tempted, the gift was given to her without her knowledge or consent really. I wonder if she knew the cost, would she still have accepted?”
“Happiness? Not free will?”
“No, that came later and was born from that fateful decision of mine.” He looked sad, immensely so.
“How could something like that cause you such misery?”
“It was the pursuit of this happiness. Happiness takes many forms. In a child, it can be something as beautiful and innocent as seeing a bumblebee land on a brilliant flower. For a man with no morals, it can be the dismemberment of his foes that gives him the greatest joy. For others, it is the accumulation of wealth at the expense of all others that brings the greatest joy.”
“Wow, you really don’t expect to hear God say He screwed up. Shit I thought when I … umm, forget it. Wait, the zombies aren’t your way of scrubbing the playing field is it? Like a reboot?”
The look He gave me would have blasted my soul free from my body, well, you know, if I had one that is.
“Do you ever listen? Perhaps I should nominate your wife for Sainthood. Someone’s idea of true happiness was having the ability to destroy all of their enemies.”
“Why can’t we be more like that kid with the bumblebee?”
“That was always my true intention. That wide-eyed stare at something so natural and beautiful. That smile. It was almost immediately that I tried to take back my gift.”
“Let me guess. This was when the covenant was formed? Do I even want to know who with? Forget it, that doesn’t matter. What is my place in all of this?”
“Like many before you, Michael, you are a warrior. Though, I send you out without the benefit of a safe haven at your end. I ask everything of you without the ability to offer anything in return.”
“I’ve had girlfriends like that before.”
God smiled.
“As long as my pursuits of happiness are aligned with yours, like t
he safety of my family, we’re good.”
“That’s all I could ever ask.”
As I began to awaken—or be transported back or just fucking came back to sanity—I was shaken by one last disturbing image. There was a small black spot nearly the size of a soccer ball. It stuck out due to the vast whiteness that was this place. Red eyes gleamed at me out from that hole, then an incredibly long finger emerged and made the traditional come hither movement. “Psst, Mike. Over here, man.” And then I fell off the couch I’d been on.
Epilogue 3
Conversations with my daughter.
* * *
Nicole has a problem with sharing. So much so, that she is angry with me that Father’s Day hovers at, or around, her birthday. I gently reminded her that without my celebration, she would not have hers. Dad one, Nicole zero. Although, in reality, she’s up by about a hundred and twenty-seven thousand, six hundred and forty-six, give or take a thousand or so. For those who have raised a daughter, you understand the math. We welcome Wesley into the family with all of our hearts.
The Lost Chapters #18
Mike Journal Entry 14
* * *
“The fence is down.” Justin was pointing out the window.
Mad Jack looked defeated. I had to believe he thought that this was going to be the best zombie deterrent of all time, and they had gone through it in much less time than it had taken to go up. My hands still ached from digging those damn post holes. Zombies were pouring into the yard. The obstacles that had done wonders for stopping the earlier versions of zombies were no more than a minor impediment now. They skirted around and over anything in their path. No amount of battling on our part was going to stem this red tide. I was about to tell everyone we needed to go when an explosion lifted me off the ground an inch, maybe more. The ground rippled from the percussions.